Albuquerque Journal

NMSU Schedule Features Visit to Kansas (Albuquerque Journal)
By Randy Harrison, Journal Staff Writer

Marvin Menzies insists he didn't want the next schedule for his New Mexico State men's basketball team to be as ambitious as last season's.
   
Yet when his Aggies needed a game, he went straight to the top.
   
Defending national champion Kansas has agreed to play host to the Aggies on Dec. 3. For the Jayhawks, whose entire 31-game schedule is set for national television, it might be just another game. But for New Mexico State, it's the marquee matchup of the upcoming season.
  
  "We wanted a high major for another game," Menzies said Thursday. "We saw a couple of their coaches when we were out recruiting, and we asked if they needed another game. We wanted the atmosphere, the big crowd, the high-quality team. We think that will be advantageous for when we get into (Western Athletic) conference play."
   
Doubtless the Aggies wanted the payday for the one-year deal too. NMSU athletics director McKinley Boston said it's "between $80,000 and $90,000, which is very good." He hopes that the agreement could lead to conversations to extend the series, perhaps making it a "two for one" where the Jayhawks would come to Las Cruces in exchange for two games in Kansas.
   
The Jayhawks went 37-3 this past season on the way to the school's fifth national championship. This season's team will be overhauled after five of its players were taken in the NBA draft. But Kansas reloads, not rebuilds.
   
The Aggie also will play at Southern Cal, where Menzies was once an assistant, on Nov. 18. There also will be the traditional home-and-away series with UTEP and New Mexico.
   
There is a West Coast flavor to the 16-game home schedule, too, with games at the Pan Am against UC Riverside, Pepperdine, Sacramento State and Loyola Marymount. Menzies said it really just worked out that way, though he has made no secret of wanting to raise his program's visibility in his native Los Angeles.
   
The Aggies, who lost five seniors from a 21-14 co-WAC championship team, also will go to Long Beach State (Nov. 30) to return last year's BracketBuster pairing, and they will host another one on the weekend of Feb. 20-21.
   
On paper, it's not as rigorous as last season's schedule that included Duke, Texas, West Virginia and Louisville, but "it's very, very challenging for such a young team with no seniors and only one junior (guard Jonathan Gibson)," Menzies said.
   
Meanwhile, the WAC announced Thursday that ESPN2 will show NMSU's Feb. 7 game at Nevada. ESPN Full Court will pick up the Kansas game. Boston is hopeful that perhaps "a half-dozen" Aggie games will be televised nationally as the season plays itself out.
   
    NMSU Schedule Features Visit to Kansas
   
    MENZIES: Aggies to face defending champs
   
    AGGIES HOOPS